Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Weary of fretting about the upcoming Turkish election, the terrible things that could happen between now and then, and the uncertainty of what might happen afterwards? Me too. Let's try to have a laugh about it instead, at least for a moment.

During the last election, all the way back in June, the ruling party plastered the country with billboards proclaiming "The others talk, AK Party does" (Onlar konuşur, Ak Parti yapar). Which, of course, left the question of "does what?" open to Internet jokesters to fill in:

"We are making the biggest thing in the world"

"We are making oven-baked pasta"

"We are doing something very super"

"We are making Turkish subtitles"

"We are doing whatever our hearts desire"

... and on and on.

The party's new election slogan, "There is no you or I, there is only Turkey" (Sen ben yok, Türkiye var) was of course also quickly appropriated by online critics:

That's a good one, for sure, but plenty of other alternatives could be similarly Photoshopped, don't you think? A few ideas to get the ball rolling...

Sen ben yok ayran var(There is no you or me, there is only ayran)Sen ben yok biber gazı var(There is no you or me, there is only teargas)

Sen ben yok beton var

(There is no you or me, there is only concrete)

Well, how 'bout it?

Sen ben yok _______ var

This week, astute wags pointed out that a new ad campaign touting the party as "the women's party" was slyly colored pink but featured only the visage of the male, mustachioed prime minister. I'm just waiting for the memes to pop up on this one too...

Although, frankly, given the poster boy's most famous recent gaffe, I think I may have come up with a winner already: